Why do projects manage profiles?

WikiTree projects were created as forums to work out decisions on highly controversial profiles of historically-significant people and widely-shared ancestors. The nature of collaboration has to be different on these profiles — it has to involve more members and be done more carefully, with more communication.

In recent years, our community has added functional projects (e.g. Greeters, Mentors) and topical projects have evolved and expanded their scope to better serve our community. However, the basic role of topical projects in managing profiles has remained the same. Projects have well-proven their value in reducing conflicts and improving the accuracy of our shared tree.

Note that before we had project accounts, project members needed to divide up responsibility and manage profiles on behalf of the project. After testing and developing project accounts from 2015 to 2017, all topical projects now have them, and these accounts should be the managers of all profiles that are managed by the project.

How do you collaborate on a profile that is managed by a project?

To collaborate on project-managed profiles, please join the project! All projects welcome new members.

Minor changes to project-managed profiles can generally be made without contacting the project, just like you can make minor changes on any profile without contacting the profile manager.

If you would like to make significant changes, but you don't want to join the project, send a message to the project account or post a message on the profile you wish to improve upon. Your help is appreciated!

What is the difference between project management and project protection?

Not all project-managed profiles fit the requirements for protection. Project protection limits the collaboration and should only be done when necessary.

Can projects follow profiles but not manage them?

Yes, a profile may be followed by a project but not managed by it. In these cases, the project account should be on the Trusted List but not set as the manager and a project box should not appear on the profile.

Project management is only appropriate if members are expected to coordinate major changes with the project instead of with an individual profile manager.

Can a project share management with individual profile managers?

Profile managers, whether individuals or projects, do not own profiles. When a profile has a project account as a profile manager, it means that the project and any other profile managers should work together to lead the genealogical collaboration efforts for the profile. All WikiTree members with an interest in a profile share the responsibility of researching, improving and editing it.

This page was last modified 14:49, 5 September 2019. This page has been accessed 3,107 times.

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